Wilting spearmint, an almost-finished cup of coffee, a stray apple, and the two-year-old who’s after it. She’s already eaten an apple this morning, so I won’t let her eat another, yet. She’s contented herself, instead, with peeling off the stickers and placing them on herself.

For the last half-hour I have sat in the oversized easy chair and nursed the baby–the baby that now contorts himself every which way instead of lying contentedly against my chest. A friend said recently that nursing a baby boy is like trying to nurse an alligator. I wrangle him, and Elvie brings me apples until I tell her to stop. Then she brings me “abocados” instead.

I bought this journal at a craft market a couple of weeks ago. I declined to write anything in it until I decided what exactly I wanted to put in it. After some thought (and probably too much at that) I decided to use it to write down the poems I’ve written about the kids, for the kids, etc. I don’t have that many, but they are coming to me more frequently now for some reason. They have titles like Pretzel Dogs or Sandbox or Nicknames and while they are generally inside jokes and will never be published, I think they are kind of funny. I will compile them all in this little book, and some day when I’m gone I hope my children squabble over who gets to keep it.

I love the look of it and felt like it needed to be photographed, so I gathered a few things and trotted outdoors to where the light is the best.

I first intentionally picked up my DSLR after my oldest son was born. Over the next four-and-a-half years, I cut my photography teeth on chasing around one, then two, then three little boys. I am not a fan of posed pictures. This is good, since it’s fairly difficult to get a newborn to smile for the camera, or to get a two-year-old to say “cheese”.

Children can have an uncanny way of making picture-taking extremely difficult, don’t they? I still remember the day my oldest learned to turn his back on my camera. He was barely two years old, and I was trying to get a picture of him in front of the Christmas tree. I’d lean around him to try and see his face, and he’d keep scooting so that he was facing away from me! He’s a come a long way since then, but then again, so have I.

Being at home with my littles gives me lots of chances to capture their childhood in photos, and especially if I’m having a rough day, there’s nothing I love so much as to be able to photograph my children. Here is a rundown of how I make it happen–even when they’re not exactly feeling it.

I put chocolate chips on my shopping list a few weeks ago. It was my intention to make them with Ephraim, who is seriously interested in helping in the kitchen right now.

Yesterday, while the younger boys napped, we got started. I measured out ingredients for him to pour into the mixer, one by one. (next time I’ll let him take on that part, too). He broke the eggs into the mixture, and we only lost one tiny piece of eggshell which I couldn’t dig out.

I had wanted to take pictures of the whole thing, mostly because I very rarely am able to get pictures of my firstborn at all, but I needed to closely supervise the process and really didn’t have a chance to take the camera out. I figured that was OK, that there would be more cookie-making in the future, and that I could document then.

There is a dogma circulating the parenting world that we are too quick to document, instagram, photograph or what-have-you a moment that we should instead just sit back and soak in, enjoy. I disagree with this hypothesis. Of course, as the cliche goes, there must be a balance–but there have been many, many moments that I reached for my camera but hesitated, and decided to “soak in the moment” instead, and do you know what happened? I forgot it. I remember the decision not to document, but that’s all I can recall of that fleeting experience.

Of course, let us be wise; let us not allow our children to go their whole lives seeing us only behind a phone or camera. But I have never looked at a photograph a week, month, year after it was taken and thought, “Man, I wish I hadn’t taken the time to take that picture.” Instead, I almost always am surprised at how much I have forgotten. My days here fly by like the tornados that Ephraim is currently obsessed with.

So I missed the making of the cookies, but today when we sat down to enjoy them, I photographed it. Not much–I only took these pictures before sitting down and having a cookie myself. But I wanted to remember it–being able to compliment Ephraim on a job well done. His serving his two brothers their cookies before sitting down to receive one himself. Anselm wearing almost as much cookie as he got in his mouth. Clive thinking he is smiling for the camera when he actually isn’t. Today they were 4, 3, and eighteen months. Today is almost gone. This memory will remain.

One evening, we all sat outside and did little more than enjoy the air in our shady front yard.

Ephraim (who was sick) lay down on a blanket and rested for a while. Clive (who was not sick) went inside and fetched his blankie, which he then took to the little red wagon and made himself a comfy bed for a few moments. He then got up and did his very best cat imitation by going inside the house, then coming back outside, then going inside again, then back outside before I finally refused to get up and open the door for him again until we were all going inside for the night.

Anselm dutifully sat where I put him, playing with grass and the blanket and a toy I had brought out.

After a bit, I noticed the afternoon sun had peeked through the trees enough to send a little sliver of light across the yard. I first tried to make Clive stand in it, but he has been feeling fairly contrary lately; he would stand where I asked, but he only made faces while doing it, so I let him go. He went to stand by the door and try to let himself in the house.

Anselm is my favorite child to photograph at the moment; he won’t move when you plonk him down somewhere, and he also hasn’t learned to hate the camera very much. Plus, his crooked front teeth. I love them.

So I picked him up and moved him, setting him down in path of the light.

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Some nesting periods start rather mildly, with the washing of baby clothes and assembling of cribs. Others are a little more forceful, with packing up your bedroom and your nursery and informing your husband that